JRL NEWSWATCH: “Trump Administration Shifts Course on Russian Arms Talks, Easing Insistence China Join Now” – Wall Street Journal/ Michael R. Gordon

August 19, 2020 JRL Russia List JRL NewsBlog, Nuclear, Missile Defense, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations

“New strategy aims at a framework agreement with Russia, possible pre-election meeting with Putin.”

“… the Trump administration signaled … that it will seek to negotiate a separate framework agreement with Moscow and move to bring Beijing on board later. … [which] could open the door for an election-year arms control understanding with Moscow — and possibly a meeting between … Trump and … Putin [—] as well as the temporary extension of the soon-to-expire New START nuclear weapons treaty. ‘The two presidents, I presume, would like to get together,’ Marshall Billingslea, … chief U.S. arms control negotiator, [said] …. ‘We laid down what we need to see from the Russian Federation … it is now a question of whether they are ready to walk down that path with us.’ … [I]t isn’t clear if Moscow will meet the American demands and forego those of its own, including its longstanding insistence that U.S. missile defenses be limited. …”